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Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the homeless community. Homelessness has always been a thing in Seattle, but has definitely

Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the homeless community. Homelessness has always been a thing in Seattle, but has definitely become a much larger issue in the past five years. I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a home" into the "homeless crisis." There are so many nuanced issues across a variety of problems here. There are drug abuse issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, cost of living issues, etc., and not to mention the varying cocktail of comorbidity, that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of "homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere. Trying to assist the single mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley passed out in their own feces. But at the end of the day, they're both human beings, and it breaks my heart that either of them are in that situation. Several separate issues, that need to be subdivided and approached in distinct ways if any progress is to be made on any of them. Smaller, subdivided problems should feel more solvable, too. Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. Despite Seattle's deep blue on most things, suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
I have wondered if the aggressive response to homeless folks doesn't stem from recognition of how little it would take to end up in their shoes...
- code_duck 8y ago
  Certainly the fact that ones own financial security is fragile makes people feel threatened by beggars - some people, you could give away everything you own and they’d still be asking for more. However I think a lot of attitudes stem from the opposite - a lack of understanding that many homeless people are regular people, or could be, or could have been.
blang 8y ago
I think you have hit many things amazingly well with Seattle homelessness. I think one of the reasons why we get very "every person for themselves" when the price tag comes up is it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle. Also it's hard to get data on who is the more representative group.
- techsupporter 8y ago
  > it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle I think this is what's going to result in a rather massive upheaval in the next city council elections in Seattle. There seems to be a belief--right or wrong[0]--that "the vagrants are taking over, the community is sick of it, and our generosity is at an end." (In quotes because it's a characterization.) There has already been one candidate for council in district 6 (Ballard, Crown Hill, Northwest Seattle), who subsequently dropped out because of other political drama, that made his main plank that he was going to do nothing except push to roll back spending at every opportunity and get ordinances passed requiring the police to actively go after "vagrancy." He didn't get very far, mostly because of the aforementioned drama, but that he got as much attention as he did is telling. I think if a more viable, or at least level-headed, candidate starts to challenge the district 6 incumbent (I'm picking on district 6 because a lot of the noise about this problem has been coming from there and 6 includes Aurora Ave N) on the basis of this belief that the problem is too far out of control and must be stopped with a big hammer, the divide between the two groups will become pretty stark. And if that challenger doesn't win, it'll be a pretty close race. 0 - I happen to think this belief is wrong.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
There's some merit to this but I'd say it's still a little off the mark. Homelessness is a condition, how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing. Dealing with everything else (mental health issues, drug addiction, etc.) can be dealt with separately, and will be vastly easier without having the fundamental problem of homelessness.
- iamdave 8y ago
  how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing The solution sounds straightforward, the path to get there looks like a Gordian knot. How do you pay for it? How do you get that funding source to go along with your plans to pay for it? Etc.
  - davidw 8y ago
    Well, we could stop making it illegal. That'd be a great first step. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seattles-rapid-growth-most-new-housing-restricted-to-a-few-areas/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seatt...
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    What do you mean by "Gordian knot" here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First > In August 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that the number of chronically homeless individuals living on the streets or in shelters dropped by an unprecedented 30 percent, from 175,914 people in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007. This was credited in part to the "housing first" approach; Congress in 1999 directed that HUD spend 30% of its funding on the method. The page is full of more success stories like that. If it's so impossible, why is it already being done all over the world? > Studies in New York City and in Utah have shown that every homeless person housed in programs such as Housing First saves taxpayers $10,000 and $8,000 a year, respectively. A research study at University of Northern Carolina also reported that a housing project for the chronically homeless called Moore Place had saved the county $2.4 million. Yet it "seems like a Gordion knot" because how would we pay for it... that's the answer, you don't pay, you save money. So if the problem is how some people feel about something, because they haven't informed themselves, then they should feel something else, problem solved.
coliveira 8y ago
In many cases, drug addiction and mental issues come as a result of homelessness itself. There is a severe mental toll inflicted on human beings that are required to live as outcasts in their own city.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I mean, I see why that would be possible, but considering cause and effect, one is more likely to burn out their support network by having a drug addiction and mental issues than the other way around.
  - harlanji 8y ago
    My support network flew away when I lost jobs, quit jobs, and finally became homeless. They get frustrated by various things and call it being negative or difficult or similar. There’s a strong unwillingness to empathize. I realized some things I did/didn’t do to attract parasitic people to my life, but I’ll digress there. Ymmv of course, but in general people are made very uncomfortable by the situation and may jump ship on a totally sober person.
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      You sound a lot like my brother. And you seem to have landed in much the same position. I could not help him keep a job so I won't pretend I could help you, either. The best thing that has happened to him is he found an employed woman whose head is fucked up in about the same way his is, and so they get along nice. And she owns her place. So at least he isn't homeless at this point.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Support networks only have so much energy in them, some have more some have less. They burn out as you use them, I think that’s just human nature. Richer people generally have deeper ones, poorer people generally have shallower ones, I guess because they have their own problems to deal with.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 8y ago
>Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. At the end of the day, everything is political. Instead of shying away from it engage with it because it is the only way you'll change society.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Truth. In fact, the more harsh way to frame this is people need to understand whether they have an interest in politics does not change the fact others do. And we all live with the product of those of us who do get involved politically. Speak or be spoken for has real teeth when viewed through this lens.
- SN76477 8y ago
  I think what we can do tomorrow is lighten regulations on things like how many people are allowed in a hotel room. This could help many people tonight. Next is feeding the homeless, some cities limit how they can be fed. We need to take a close look at these sorts of regulations as soon as possible. Just these two things could make a huge impact.
  - ryacko 8y ago
    This is a well known issue known for a long time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_hotels_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_hotels_in_the...
- thoughtexplorer 8y ago
  > At the end of the day, everything is political. It only is if you view everything through a political lens. Science and psychology, for example, are not political. Plus you can affect change without the political system. Starting with improving oneself. Then family members. Then local community. If enough people did that, that would be a societal change and maybe we wouldn't have such a crisis in the first place.
  - cco 8y ago
crooked-v 8y ago
> suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag. A confounding factor involved here is that many government strategies for dealing with the homeless are endless money pits without noticeable results. I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with their tax dollars going to that purpose if they didn't feel like nothing was actually happening from it.
- dan_quixote 8y ago
  > endless money pits without noticeable results Homelessness budgets are money pits because our first line of defense is so often the ER where the patients can cost tens of thousands of dollars per day. The patients with serious mental health or substance abuse problems also have nowhere to go after the ER...so they get stuck there for many extra days/weeks because no one will take them. Do the math and each hospital visit can easily extend past $1 million and typically are at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Retric 8y ago
  Actually spending targeting homelessness is fairly minimal. So, IMO it’s hard to call it a money pit.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Is that not due to simply not spending?
    - Retric 8y ago
      If you estimate ~20k per homeless person per year * 550,000 homes in the US you get on the order of 11 Billion dollars per year out of something like 7,150 Billion of total government spending. On the other hand if you look at social security as one way to reduce homelessness it’s vastly more expensive.
      - ddingus 8y ago
        Neither one of those actually speaks to our spend.
hannob 8y ago
> Trying to assist the single mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley passed out in their own feces. I'm not sure it is so different. I mean it may be on the long term, but the first step of helping them is making sure they get a place to live. You're unlikely to solve any of their other problems effectively unless these people can have a start of a more regular life - and having a place to live is pretty much a condition for everything else.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
> that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of "homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere It's interesting that you raise that point. I was technically "homeless" for about a year once, as I wasn't living in permanent accomodation, but rather in a backpackers hostel in my home country. I was actually pretty happy with my living situation, and had no desire to move into permanent accomodation. It was also a massive advantage when I decided to quit my job and move countries, I didn't have any contracts to cancel or work my way out of. I simply handed in my notice, booked a flight, and 3 weeks later I was in a new country. These days I'd be much more hard pressed to do that. I'm on a 1 year lease, I have a 2 year contract with my ISP, I have has gas bills, water bills, and power bills in my name, I own an entire house worth of furniture. It actually makes me a bit sad that I'm immobile, I enjoyed the freedom of the concept that I could pack up and leave at a moments notice (which I eventually did).

blacksmith_tb 8y ago

I have wondered if the aggressive response to homeless folks doesn't stem from recognition of how little it would take to end up in their shoes...

code_duck 8y ago
Certainly the fact that ones own financial security is fragile makes people feel threatened by beggars - some people, you could give away everything you own and they’d still be asking for more. However I think a lot of attitudes stem from the opposite - a lack of understanding that many homeless people are regular people, or could be, or could have been.

blang 8y ago

I think you have hit many things amazingly well with Seattle homelessness. I think one of the reasons why we get very "every person for themselves" when the price tag comes up is it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle. Also it's hard to get data on who is the more representative group.

techsupporter 8y ago
> it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle I think this is what's going to result in a rather massive upheaval in the next city council elections in Seattle. There seems to be a belief--right or wrong[0]--that "the vagrants are taking over, the community is sick of it, and our generosity is at an end." (In quotes because it's a characterization.) There has already been one candidate for council in district 6 (Ballard, Crown Hill, Northwest Seattle), who subsequently dropped out because of other political drama, that made his main plank that he was going to do nothing except push to roll back spending at every opportunity and get ordinances passed requiring the police to actively go after "vagrancy." He didn't get very far, mostly because of the aforementioned drama, but that he got as much attention as he did is telling. I think if a more viable, or at least level-headed, candidate starts to challenge the district 6 incumbent (I'm picking on district 6 because a lot of the noise about this problem has been coming from there and 6 includes Aurora Ave N) on the basis of this belief that the problem is too far out of control and must be stopped with a big hammer, the divide between the two groups will become pretty stark. And if that challenger doesn't win, it'll be a pretty close race. 0 - I happen to think this belief is wrong.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

There's some merit to this but I'd say it's still a little off the mark. Homelessness is a condition, how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing. Dealing with everything else (mental health issues, drug addiction, etc.) can be dealt with separately, and will be vastly easier without having the fundamental problem of homelessness.

iamdave 8y ago
how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing The solution sounds straightforward, the path to get there looks like a Gordian knot. How do you pay for it? How do you get that funding source to go along with your plans to pay for it? Etc.
- davidw 8y ago
  Well, we could stop making it illegal. That'd be a great first step. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seattles-rapid-growth-most-new-housing-restricted-to-a-few-areas/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seatt...
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  What do you mean by "Gordian knot" here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First > In August 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that the number of chronically homeless individuals living on the streets or in shelters dropped by an unprecedented 30 percent, from 175,914 people in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007. This was credited in part to the "housing first" approach; Congress in 1999 directed that HUD spend 30% of its funding on the method. The page is full of more success stories like that. If it's so impossible, why is it already being done all over the world? > Studies in New York City and in Utah have shown that every homeless person housed in programs such as Housing First saves taxpayers $10,000 and $8,000 a year, respectively. A research study at University of Northern Carolina also reported that a housing project for the chronically homeless called Moore Place had saved the county $2.4 million. Yet it "seems like a Gordion knot" because how would we pay for it... that's the answer, you don't pay, you save money. So if the problem is how some people feel about something, because they haven't informed themselves, then they should feel something else, problem solved.

coliveira 8y ago

In many cases, drug addiction and mental issues come as a result of homelessness itself. There is a severe mental toll inflicted on human beings that are required to live as outcasts in their own city.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I mean, I see why that would be possible, but considering cause and effect, one is more likely to burn out their support network by having a drug addiction and mental issues than the other way around.
- harlanji 8y ago
  My support network flew away when I lost jobs, quit jobs, and finally became homeless. They get frustrated by various things and call it being negative or difficult or similar. There’s a strong unwillingness to empathize. I realized some things I did/didn’t do to attract parasitic people to my life, but I’ll digress there. Ymmv of course, but in general people are made very uncomfortable by the situation and may jump ship on a totally sober person.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    You sound a lot like my brother. And you seem to have landed in much the same position. I could not help him keep a job so I won't pretend I could help you, either. The best thing that has happened to him is he found an employed woman whose head is fucked up in about the same way his is, and so they get along nice. And she owns her place. So at least he isn't homeless at this point.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Support networks only have so much energy in them, some have more some have less. They burn out as you use them, I think that’s just human nature. Richer people generally have deeper ones, poorer people generally have shallower ones, I guess because they have their own problems to deal with.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

noobermin 8y ago

>Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. At the end of the day, everything is political. Instead of shying away from it engage with it because it is the only way you'll change society.

ddingus 8y ago
Truth. In fact, the more harsh way to frame this is people need to understand whether they have an interest in politics does not change the fact others do. And we all live with the product of those of us who do get involved politically. Speak or be spoken for has real teeth when viewed through this lens.
SN76477 8y ago
I think what we can do tomorrow is lighten regulations on things like how many people are allowed in a hotel room. This could help many people tonight. Next is feeding the homeless, some cities limit how they can be fed. We need to take a close look at these sorts of regulations as soon as possible. Just these two things could make a huge impact.
- ryacko 8y ago
  This is a well known issue known for a long time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_hotels_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_hotels_in_the...
thoughtexplorer 8y ago
> At the end of the day, everything is political. It only is if you view everything through a political lens. Science and psychology, for example, are not political. Plus you can affect change without the political system. Starting with improving oneself. Then family members. Then local community. If enough people did that, that would be a societal change and maybe we wouldn't have such a crisis in the first place.
- cco 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago

> suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag. A confounding factor involved here is that many government strategies for dealing with the homeless are endless money pits without noticeable results. I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with their tax dollars going to that purpose if they didn't feel like nothing was actually happening from it.

dan_quixote 8y ago
> endless money pits without noticeable results Homelessness budgets are money pits because our first line of defense is so often the ER where the patients can cost tens of thousands of dollars per day. The patients with serious mental health or substance abuse problems also have nowhere to go after the ER...so they get stuck there for many extra days/weeks because no one will take them. Do the math and each hospital visit can easily extend past $1 million and typically are at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Retric 8y ago
Actually spending targeting homelessness is fairly minimal. So, IMO it’s hard to call it a money pit.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Is that not due to simply not spending?
  - Retric 8y ago
    If you estimate ~20k per homeless person per year * 550,000 homes in the US you get on the order of 11 Billion dollars per year out of something like 7,150 Billion of total government spending. On the other hand if you look at social security as one way to reduce homelessness it’s vastly more expensive.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      Neither one of those actually speaks to our spend.

hannob 8y ago

> Trying to assist the single mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley passed out in their own feces. I'm not sure it is so different. I mean it may be on the long term, but the first step of helping them is making sure they get a place to live. You're unlikely to solve any of their other problems effectively unless these people can have a start of a more regular life - and having a place to live is pretty much a condition for everything else.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

> that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of "homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere It's interesting that you raise that point. I was technically "homeless" for about a year once, as I wasn't living in permanent accomodation, but rather in a backpackers hostel in my home country. I was actually pretty happy with my living situation, and had no desire to move into permanent accomodation. It was also a massive advantage when I decided to quit my job and move countries, I didn't have any contracts to cancel or work my way out of. I simply handed in my notice, booked a flight, and 3 weeks later I was in a new country. These days I'd be much more hard pressed to do that. I'm on a 1 year lease, I have a 2 year contract with my ISP, I have has gas bills, water bills, and power bills in my name, I own an entire house worth of furniture. It actually makes me a bit sad that I'm immobile, I enjoyed the freedom of the concept that I could pack up and leave at a moments notice (which I eventually did).